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Bij  Lieutenanl  A.  W.  KLIEFOTH 


for  iKree  i^ears  Itlililanj  Observer  of 
the  U.  S.  Etnbassi]  at  Petroqrad  ^^  one 
ijear  under  the  Cxar  and  huo  q«aTt 
under  the  Kerenskq  and  Lenin  and 
Troiskii  reqinxes 


BOLSHEVISM 


By  an  Eye  -Witness 
from  Wisconsin 


^3^'C'X9 


By  Lieutenant  A.  W,  KLIEFOTH 

for  three  years  Military  Observer  of  the 
U.  S.  Embassy  at  Petrograd  —  one  year 
under  the  Czar  and  two  years  under  the 
Kerensky  and  Lenin  and  Trotsky  regimes 


Copyright.  1920,  by 

American  Constitutional  League 

of  Wisconsin. 

Milwaukee. 


.}IFT 


FOREWORD 

Out  of  Darkest  Russia  come  facts  that  make  an 
American's  blood  run  cold. 

The  Soviet  Socialist  Republic  that  Lenin  and 
Trotsky  have  set  up  in  the  name  of  Marxian 
socialism  is  an  attempt  to  establish  a  human  stock 
farm,  with  all  the  science  that  breeds  cattle  for 
the  market,  even  up  to  the  slaughter  house  and 
bloody  shambles. 

Religion  and  the  family,  God  and  home, 
marriage  and  mother  love,  all  are  being  wiped 
out. 

Freedom  of  the  press,  freedom  of  speech, 
freedom  of  assemblage,  the  right  to  organize  and 
strike — all  the  great  institutions  of  democracy — 
have  disappeared. 

"Any  worded  opposition  or  criticism  of  the 
Soviet  form  of  government  constitutes  a  lie,"  is 
the  decree,  and  all  newspapers,  institutions  or 
any  person  guilty  of  stating  a  lie  in  Soviet  Russia 
is  guilty  of  treason,  and  treason  means  jail  or 
death. 

8 

420221 


f^OT^SfiE^iSia:T-BjcATiiEye- Witness. 

Lenin  insists  that  the  last  wicked,  capitalistic 
tool  in  the  world  is  the  family.     It  must  go. 

Education  is  turned  into  a  study  of  Karl  Marx 
and  Marxian  socialism  first,  and  then  the  process 
of  prolecult,  or  self -education. 

Diplomas  from  universities  are  issued  in  thirty 
to  sixty  days  after  the  communist  begins  to  study 
law  or  medicine. 

Children  are  sent  from  their  families  to  com- 
munist schools  hundreds  of  miles  away,  and  the 
records  destroyed,  to  break  the  ties  of  relation- 
ship. 

The  right  of  private  property  is  torn  out,  root 
and  branch,  from  the  soul  of  the  people.  Work- 
men, moving  from  one  town  to  another,  may  only 
take  a  change  of  garments.  Every  article  owned 
or  prized  by  a  person  must  be  left  behind,  to  be 
used  temporarily  by  the  tenant  of  his  former 
house. 

Economic  value  alone  counts.  Lenin  says 
that  those  who  have  no  social  or  economic  value 
must  be  treated  as  a  horse  or  a  dog  or  a  cow  that 
has  no  economic  value.     No  sentiment,  no  love. 


Bolshevism — By  An  Eye -Witness. 

no  nobleness  of  thought,  no  high-minded  purpose 
— everything  reduced  to  a  hard,  materiahstic 
matter-of-fact,  sordid  basis — just  as  one  would 
breed  animals  in  a  barn  yard.  Ambition  must 
be  treated  as  a  cancer  and  cut  out. 

The  robbery  of  land  and  property  and  money 
has  been  literally  carried  out ;  even  the  working- 
man's  body  is  not  his  own,  and  he  is  the  most 
disappointed  man  in  all  Russia. 

A  hundred  million  peasants  were  told  to  help 
themselves  to  the  lands  of  ten  million  who  owned 
land.  And  then  those  who  failed  to  get  land  in 
this  grab  were  bidden  to  take  it  from  those  who 
had  seized  the  land.  The  empty-handed,  those 
who  lost  out,  those  who  were  kicked  out  became 
the  "proletariat"  in  turn,  and  the  Socialist  Re- 
public urges  them  to  seize  the  possessions  of  the 
ones  who  are  temporarily  on  top. 

Religion  of  all  kinds  is  spit  upon.  Even  the 
communist  schools  spend  hours  in  demonstrating 
to  little  children  that  religion  is  a  myth  and  su- 
perstition and  that  God  is  a  fiction  as  unreal  as 
Santa  Glaus. 

The   Russian   Socialist   Republic   is   putting 


Bolshevism — By  An  Eye -Witness, 

into  practice  in  all  its  horrid  reality  the  teachings 
that  the  Marxian  Socialists  have  been  preaching 
in  parlor-Bolshevist  meetings  and  on  the  soap- 
box for  years. 

The  Russian  people,  in  their  wild  joy  at  the 
downfall  of  the  Czar,  tried  to  establish  a  Republic 
founded  on  the  democratic  principles  of  our 
United  States  Constitution.  But  Kerensky  was 
no  match  for  Lenin. 

The  Bolshevists  are  but  a  small  fraction  of  the 
two  hundred  millions  of  Russian  people.  Lenin 
said  truly:  "If  ever  I  obtain  five  per  cent  of  the 
militant  proletariat  of  Russia,  I  will  swing  the 
revolution." 

Over  night,  the  Reds  captured  the  democratic 
government  at  Petrograd  and  installed  the 
"Black  Police"  of  the  Czar  to  carry  out  their 
bloody  program. 

Such  are  some  of  the  facts  related  in  Plankin- 
ton  Hall,  the  Auditorium,  Milwaukee,  by  Lieu- 
tenant Alfred  W.  Kliefoth,  ex-attache  to  the 
American  Embassy  in  Russia,  in  a  speech  under 
the  auspices  of  the  American  Constitutional 
League    of  Wisconsin,   by  the  ,.courtesy   of  The 


Bolshevism — By  An  Eye -Witness, 

American    Russian    Chamber  of  Commerce    of 
New  York. 

Lieutenant  Kliefoth  is  Wisconsin  born  and 
bred,  a  graduate  of  the  University  at  Madison, 
receiving  his  degree  of  B.  A.  in  1913.  For  five 
years,  and  until  a  few  months  ago,  he  has  been  in 
the  service  of  the  State  Department  of  the  United 
States,  and  was  clerk  of  the  American  Legation  at 
Stockholm,  Sweden;  then  Vice-Consul  at  Har- 
paranda,  Sweden;  later  American  control  officer 
at  Torneo,  Finland;  then  Assistant  Military 
Attache  with  the  American  Embassy  at  Petro- 
grad;  and  finally  Military  Observer  with  the 
Armies  in  Russia. 

The  last  three  years  have  been  the  most  im- 
portant in  Russia's  history.  Lieutenant  Kliefoth 
was  not  only  there  for  months  before  the  Czar  was 
dethroned,  but  remained  through  Kerensky's 
rule  and  the  dark  days  of  Bolshevism  until  the 
fall  of  1919. 

Because  of  his  knowledge  of  five  European 
languages,  and  his  thorough  understanding  of 
socialism,  he  was  able  to  get  information  where 
others  failed,  and  was  most  valuable  to  the 
American  government  on  Bolshevik  territory. 


Bolshevism — By  An  Eye  -  Witness. 

As  a  living  eye-witness  to  the  workings  of 
Bolshevism,  with  an  intimate  knowledge  of  con- 
ditions under  the  Czar  and  Kerensky  too,  it 
would  be  hard  to  find  any  other  American,  who 
would  be  free  to  speak,  to  equal  Lieutenant 
Kliefoth  in  authority  and  credibility. 

Strangely  enough,  "Soviet  Russia,"  the  official 
paper  of  the  Russian  Socialist  Federated  Soviet 
Republic,  in  America,  published  while  Lieuten- 
ant Kliefoth  was  in  Milwaukee,  the  text  of  a 
speech  delivered  by  Nikolai  Lenin,  the  Premier 
of  Bolshevist  Russia,  at  Moscow,  on  "The  Work 
in  the  Villages."  Lenin  corroborates  so  strik- 
ingly the  facts  related  by  Lieutenant  Kliefoth 
that  his  stern  admissions  are  referred  to  and 
quoted  verbatim  in  their  proper  connection  in  the 
course  of  Lieutenant  Kliefoth's  speech. 


BOLSHEVISM. 

By  Lieut.  A.  W.  Kliefoth 

Military  Attache  of  the  United  States  Embassy  at  Petrograd 
for  three  years,  one  year  under  the  regime  of  Czar  Nicholas 
and  two  years  under  Kerensky  and  Lenin  and  Trotsky. 

It  was  in  October,  1916,  that  I  arrived  in  Petrograd, 
Russia.  As  a  student  of  Wisconsin  University,  I  had  always 
been  much  interested  in  Russia,  and  when  I  was  located  in 
our  legation  in  Stockholm,  Sweden,  I  tried  to  influence  our 
minister  there  to  give  me  an  opportunity  to  go  to  Russia, 
the  great  nation  about  which  here  we  hear  so  much  and 
about  which  we  know  and  understand  so  little. 

During  my  four  years  in  the  university  I  had  taken  al- 
most every  course  of  study  offered  to  study  conditions  such 
as  are  present  in  Russia  to-day.  I  took,  for  instance,  all  the 
courses  in  political  economy,  sociology,  socialism,  anarch- 
ism and  all  similar  subjects,  and  so  when  I  was  in  Stock- 
holm I  thought  perhaps  I  would  understand  some  of  the 
things  that  the  Russians  were  doing  and  advocating. 

When  I  arrived  in  Russia,  the  Czar  was  still  on  his 
throne  and  the  autocracy  was  such  that  I  could  not  under- 
stand it,  as  I  had  come  from  a  democratic  country.  It  was 
cruel,  mean  and  all  the  vile  things  you  can  think  of.  We 
had  heard  and  read  much  of  the  strong  autocracy,  of  the 
powerful  bureaucracy  of  that  government,  but  none  of  the 
descriptions  that  I  had  read  actually  equaled  the  things  I 
saw  there. 

So,  when  in  March,  1917,  the  revolution  broke  out  and 
the  Czar  was  ousted  and  swept  out  of  power  and  off  his 


Bolshevism — By  An  Eye -Witness. 

throne,  no  one  in  Russia  was  happier  than  I  was  to  see  the 
downfall  of  this  powerful  autocracy.  Every  member  of  our 
embassy  joined  the  revolutionists  in  celebrating  the  occa- 
sion, rejoicing  that  the  Russian  people  had  finally  suc- 
ceeded in  overthrowing  this  powerful  autocracy. 

Consequently,  we  were  all  very  much  interested  in  the 
First  Provisional  Government  of  Russia,  and  the  members 
of  the  Provisional  Government  were  just  as  much  interested 
in  the  Americans,  and  particularly  in  the  American  form  of 
government.  Almost  daily  their  members  came  to  our  of- 
fices to  consult  our  law  books,  our  text-books  on  American 
institutions,  and  to  ask  us  about  the  various  forms  of  govern- 
ment and  branches  from  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States  to  the  smallest  municipality. 

Proud  of  the  First  Republic. 

We  were  all  very  proud  of  the  first  Republic  of  Russia 
and  we  felt  it  was  a  part  of  our  life.  We  saw  how  the 
Russians  were  trying  to  copy  our  form  of  government,  ac- 
cepting those  parts  and  institutions  that  are  successful  in 
this  country  and  rejecting  other  institutions  which  in  their 
opinion  were  not  successful. 

During  all  of  these  months  I  was  in  Petrograd,  attached 
to  the  embassy,  and  it  was  my  privilege  to  witness  the 
struggle  of  this  new  Russia,  of  this  first  Provisional 
Republic. 

About  four  months  later  I  was  transferred  to  Finland, 
to  a  little  border  city  on  the  frontier.  Through  this  little 
place  all  foreigners  entering  or  leaving  Russia  had  to  pass, 
and  here  it  was  that  the  American  government,  in  conjunc- 
tion with  the  Allies,  established  an  allied  control  and  pass 

10 


Bolshevism — By  An  Eye  -  Witness, 

port  office.  Through  it  passed  also  all  the  exiles  that  wanted 
to  return  to  Russia.  Through  it  came  all  the  exiles  from 
the  United  States,  France,  England,  and  all  European 
countries.  The  majority  of  these  returning  exiles  had  been 
away  from  Russia  for  many  years.  They  were  exiled  by 
the  Czar  because  they  believed  in  democracy,  and  so  when 
the  First  Provisional  Government  was  established  they  all 
hurried  back  to  Russia,  to  take  an  active  part  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  new  government. 

I  had  the  opportunity  to  talk  for  hours  with  these 
returning  exiles.  Ninety-five  per  cent  of  them  were  loyal, 
patriotic  Russians  who  were  anxious  to  get  back  to  Russia 
and  take  a  part  in  the  building  up  of  the  new  democratic 
government  that  had  just  been  established.  The  other  five 
per  cent  were  not  loyal  and  patriotic  Russians;  they  were 
also  exiles,  but  exiles  who  were  not  included  in  the  so-called 
political  classes.  But  all  were  welcome  to  the  regime  of 
Kerensky. 

Appearance  of  Lenin. 

A  certain  group  of  these  exiled  Russians  were  living  in 
Switzerland  at  that  time.  At  the  head  of  this  group  was  a 
man  who  is  now  the  president  of  all  Russia  Soviets — Lenin. 
He  and  his  group  asked  the  French,  the  English  and  Ameri- 
can governments  for  passports  to  return  to  Russia,  but  pass- 
ports were  refused  them,  and  wisely  so. 

Suddenly  the  press  of  the  world  announced  that  the 
German  Government  had  placed  at  his  disposal  two  trains 
to  pass  through  Germany  and  into  Russia.  We  could  not 
understand  it.  How  could  -the  Government  of  Germany, 
an  imperialistic  government,  extend  these  facilities  to  revo- 
lutionists?    But  Germany  knew  what  she  was  doing,  and 

11 


Bolshevism — By  An  Eye -Witness. 

she  was  also  very  careful  about  it,  too.  The  German  Gov- 
ernment sealed  the  trains  tightly  so  that  Bolshevism  could 
not  leak  out  en  route. 

In  a  short  period  of  time  Lenin  and  his  force  arrived 
at  Torneo.  We  sent  telegram  after  telegram  to  Kerensky 
and  to  our  own  embassy  to  use  every  effort  possible  to  pre- 
vent Lenin  and  his  force  from  entering  Russia,  but  Kerensky 
himself  finally  replied  that  the  First  Provisional  Govern- 
ment was  a  democratic  government. 

Lenin  the  Great  Promiser. 

That  is  how  Lenin  arrived  in  Petrograd.  And  it  so 
happened  that  shortly  afterward  I  was  again  transferred 
to  Petrograd.  There  I  had  opportunity  to  observe  Lenin 
in  action.  There  I  could  hear  Lenin  speaking  daily.  I 
heard  him  say  things  such  as  this:  "If  ever  I  obtain  five 
percent  of  the  militant  proletariat  of  Russia  in  a  short 
time  I  will  swing  the  revolution." 

In  addition  to  statements  such  as  this  he  had  a  policy 
— the  Marxian  socialist  program.  He  had  a  peculiar  Rus- 
sian program,  which  was  called  "A  Platform  of  Promises," 
and  the  Russian  newspapers  at  the  time  heralded  him  as 
the  great  "foreign  agitator,  the  great  foreign  promiser." 
With  much  interest,  the  Russian  people  as  well  as  we 
Americans  went  to  listen  to  his  theses  and  lectures  on 
Marxian  socialism. 

And  then  suddenly  there  came  the  coup  d'etat,  the 
capture  of  the  government.  I  cannot  begin  to  describe  to 
you  how,  with  the  aid  of  promises,  and  how,  with  a  war- 
weary  people  such  as  they  were  in  Russia  at  that  time,  he 

12 


Bolshevism — By  An  Eye -Witness. 

was  able  to  establish  himself  in  power.  But  on  the  same 
day  that  he  came  into  power  he  immediately  put  in  opera- 
tion all  of  those  forms  of  autocracy  that  had  prevailed 
under  the  Czar.  You  have  all  read  in  the  newspapers  of 
the  famous  "black  police"  of  the  Czar — the  okhrana. 

All  of  these  people,  and  all  of  the  autocratic  and  bureau- 
cratic institutions  which  we  had  witnessed  under  tlie  Czar 
were  swept  into  power.  All  of  the  liberties  which  were  given 
to  the  Russian  people  by  the  First  Provisional  Govern- 
ment of  Russia — the  freedom  of  the  press,  freedom  of 
speech,  freedom  of  assemblage,  the  right  of  the  worker 
to  organize  and  to  strike — all  of  these  great  institutions  of 
democracy  disappeared  on  the  day  Lenin  seized  control  of 
Russia.^    .^/,,       -c-iy.  ■■"         '       •      ^/    '  ■ 

A  Lie  Was  Made  Treason. 

He  issued  his  famous  decree  which  said  that  any  news- 
paper, any  institution,  or  any  individual  guilty  of  stating 
a  lie  in  Soviet  Russia  was  guilty  of  treason  and  was  subject 
to  be  treated  accordingly.  His  definition  of  a  lie  was  this: 
"Any  worded  opposition  or  criticism  of  the  Soviet  forms  of 
government  constitutes  a  lie."  And  consequently,  every 
newspaper,  every  individual,  every  institution,  every  or- 
ganization in  the  country  was  inunediately  deprived  of  this 
power  of  public  expression. 

But  finally  the  newspapers  were  again  able  to  word 
themselves  so  that  they  could  comply  with  this  edict  and 
they  were  again  able  to  appear.  However,  according  to 
Lenin,  an  individual  or  an  institution  or  organization  that 
has  no  social  value — this  is  according  to  the  Soviet  point 
of  view — ^has  no  right  to  receive  rations  of  food,  fuel,  and 

18 


Bolshevism — By  An  Eye -Witness. 

so  forth — the  necessities  of  life.     In  that  manner  he  was 
again  ahle  to  control  the  newspapers. 

A  Cruel  and  Brutal  Despotism. 

The  system  of  autocracy  established  by  Lenin  was  one 
of  cruel  and  brutal  despotism.  He  established  side  by  side 
with  the  autocracy,  an  actual  operation  of  Marxian  social- 
ism. 

For  instance,  before  Lenin  was  in  power  he  stated  re- 
peatedly that  the  last  wicked,  capitalistic  tool  in  the  world 
is  the  family;  but  as  Lenin  and  his  force  are  the  most 
clever  propagandists  in  the  world  today,  he  did  not  put  it 
before  the  people  in  such  a  direct  way,  but  always  in  an 
indirect  and  underhanded  manner.  These  doctrines  when  in 
actual  operation  in  this  indirect  manner  undermined  the 
morale  of  the  people  and  put  into  the  minds  of  the  work- 
ingman  the  belief  that  the  family  was  the  basic  institution 
of  capitalism  which  was  keeping  them  in  chains. 

Breaking  Down  the  Family. 

This  is  how  this  thing  works  out;  for  instance,  you  are 
living  in  the  city  of  Petrograd  and  you  desire  to  go  to 
Moscow  or  some  other  city  to  visit  your  mother,  or  your 
brother,  or  your  wife  who  is  very  sick  and  desires  to  see 
you.  You  ask  the  Commissar  in  Petrograd  for  a  permit  to 
leave  the  city.  He  will  ask  you:  "What  is  your  reason 
for  wanting  to  leave  the  city?"  and  you  will  tell  him 
that  you  desire  to  see  your  wife  who  is  very  sick  and  de- 
sires to  see  you.  The  Commissar  will  answer:  "Comrade, 
that  is  no  reason  to  go  to  Moscow;  your  mother,  your  wife, 
or  your  daughter  or  sister  is  merely  your  fellow-citizeness 

14 


Bolshevism — By  An  Eye -Witness. 

— a  citizeness  of  the  Soviet  Republic,  and  the  Soviet  Repub- 
lic cannot  afford  to  have  you  travel  on  the  trains  and  use 
up  fuel  and  incur  such  expenses  for  the  Government."  In 
this  way  they  are  undermining  the  institution  of  the  family. 

To  give  another  illustration  of  how  the  family  is  under- 
mined in  Russia.  The  Commissar  of  Education  has  es- 
tablished two  departments  of  education.  One  has  taken  con- 
trol of  all  the  existing  schools  which  they  found  when  they 
came  into  power.  The  object  is  to  convert  these  schools 
slowly  to  the  idea  of  socialism.  The  second  department  is 
the  system  of  schools  established  under  communism,  called 
the  prolecult,  or  self-education.  Last  year  the  courses  of 
study  were  only  about  thirty  or  sixty  days  in  length,  at  the 
end  of  which  time  you  received  your  diploma  in  law,  or 
medicine,  or  whatever  the  study  you  desired. 

Studies  in  the  Universities. 

Let  me  give  you  the  courses  of  study  that  are  given  at 
the  Petrograd  university.  For  instance,  "Physics  is  the 
science  of  irresistence  encountered  by  the  collective  labor 
of  human  beings";  "Logic  is  the  theory  of  the  social  co- 
ordination of  ideas,"  and  so  forth. 

Then  there  are  the  communist  schools,  which  correspond 
to  the  grade  schools  in  this  country.  These  communist 
schools  are  often  established  side  by  side  with  the  old  ex- 
isting institutions,  so  that  if  you  go  to  Petrograd  today 
and  you  are  interested  in  education  they  will  perhaps 
show  you  one  of  the  old  schools,  but  if  you  are  a  socialist 
from  Milwaukee,  or  a  communist,  they  will  show  you  the 
communist  schools. 

16 


Bolshevism — By  An  Eye -Witness. 

When  these  children  are  ready  to  go  to  school,  the  first 
thing  done  is  the  selection  of  a  school  in  another  city  for 
them  by  the  state.  The  object  of  this  is  to  get  them  away 
from  the  influence  and  affection  of  their  mother  and  from 
the  ties  of  the  family.  The  day  these  children  leave  their 
home  for  school,  the  records  showing  the  relationship  to 
their  parents  are  destroyed,  and  the  children  are  sent  to  a 
school  unknown  to  the  parents,  so  that  the  parents  will 
not  know  where  the  children  are. 

They  tell  us  they  must  sever  the  influence  which  the 
parents  have  over  their  children,  otherwise  they  are  not 
able  to  establish  communism. 

Prolecult  on  Self-Education. 

In  the  schools,  reading,  writing  and  arithmetic  and  such 
things  are  not  taught.  In  their  places  is  the  system  of  pro- 
lecult, or  self -education,  or  education  which  a  human  being 
acquires  through  contact  with  labor.  The  so-called  cul- 
tural education  taught  is  simply  the  doctrines  that  are  found 
in  the  text-books  of  Karl  Marx. 

It  is  the  effort  and  endeavor  of  their  teachers  at  all 
times  to  instill  a  new  culture  into  the  children,  to  root 
out  of  their  minds  all  their  capitalistic  views  of  society. 
For  instance,  in  one  of  these  schools  where  I  was,  at  one 
time  all  the  girls  of  the  school  were  required  to  ex- 
change their  dresses  with  each  other  at  regular  intervals. 
Otherwise  they  would  soon  attach  a  certain  love  to  the 
garment  and  in  that  manner  revive  the  instinct  of  property. 
So,  to  overcome  the  idea  of  property  they  resort  to  these 
kinds  of  ideas — to  keep  out  of  the  minds  of  the  children 

16 


Bolshevism — By  An  Eye -Witness. 

the  thought  there  is  any  economic  value  in  the  possession 
of  property. 

In  all  of  Soviet  Russia  there  is  no  sentiment,  no  dreams ; 
everything  is  reduced  to  a  working,  practical  sordid 
basis.  When  they  said  they  would  abolish  private  property 
they  did  abolish  it.  If  a  citizen  wants  to  make  a  change 
of  residence,  the  only  property  which  he  can  take  with 
him  is  one  change  of  clothing;  all  his  other  possessions — 
his  watch,  his  personal  effects,  to  say  nothing  of  furniture — 
belong  in  the  house  where  he  last  lived,  and  that  belongs 
to  the  communist  government.  The  only  thing  he  actually 
owns  is  one  change  of  clothing. 

The  Downfall  of  Private  Property. 

You  all  know  what  happened  to  the  private  property 
in  Russia.  Before  Lenin  came  into  power  he  had  promised 
the  workingmen  possession  of  everything,  and  that  has  all 
been  carried  into  practice  literally.  Every  workingman  was 
anxious  to  own  anything  he  could  get  hold  of.  On  the  day 
Bolshevism  swept  into  control,  the  workingman  actually 
controlled  the  factories. 

That  is  to  say,  in  a  certain  factory  where  there  were  five 
hundred  workingmen,  those  workingmen  passed  into  pos- 
session of  that  factory — it  became  their  own.  After  a 
few  weeks,  however,  they  started  the  process  of  elimination. 
They  picked  out  their  weaker  brothers  in  these  factories 
and  eliminated  them  from  the  ownership  of  the  property, 
and  when  this  process  was  finished,  the  control  of  the 
factory  was  actually  in  the  hands  of  about  ten  workingmen. 

Then  the  government  realized  that  that  was  not  a  suc- 
cessful scheme  and  they  recalled  to  the  factory  the  experts, 

17 


Bolshevism — By  An  Eye -Witness. 

die  former  owners  and  managers,  and  gave  them  large 
salaries  to  run  the  factories.  These  salaries  were,  of  course, 
bribes,  and  hundreds  of  experts,  so  called,  and  former 
owners  of  the  factories  gladly  went  back  in  order  to  save 
as  much  as  they  could  of  their  former  holdings.* 

Workmen  Most  Disappointed. 

So  the  expropriation  of  property  in  Russia  has  actually 
been  carried  out  and  has  proven  a  failure,  and  it  is  the 
workingmen  of  Russia  who  are  today  the  most  disappointed 
men  in  the  world — they  are  the  most  dissatisfied  class  in 
the  world.  They  believed  that  through  the  workingmen 
controlling  the  factories  they  would  actually  come  into 
possession  of  a  certain  part  of  the  factory,  but  the  Bol- 


*  Soviet  economies  are  not  necessary,  we  are  being  told — let  everyone 
work  for  himself.  But  we  say:  no,  if  we  shall  not  learn  how  to  manage 
on  the  new  forms,  we  shall  never  get  out  of  poverty  and  darkness,  and 
for  the  purpose  of  learning  how  to  manage  along  the  new  lines,  we  have 
to  hire  the  old  specialists. 

How  is  this  to  be  done?  The  same  way  we  did  with  the  Red  Army. 
Those  who  will  in  any  way  violate  the  statutes  of  the  Soviets,  who  will 
not  submit  to  us,  we  will  prosecute  without  mercy.  And  the  majority 
of  them  we  will  force  into  submission  and  they  will  work  in  our  interests, 
as  we  forced  tens  of  thousands  of  officers,  colonels  and  generals,  who 
were  used  to  work  for  the  Czar.  Here  is  a  very  difficult  and  complicated 
problem.  It  is  necessary  to  have  organization,  discipline,  consciousness 
of  the  workers,  close  contact  with  the  peasants,  the  ability  to  explain  to 
the  peasants  and  show  them  that  all  abuses,  all  errors  will  be  eliminated. 
We  say  this:  people  who  possess  knowledge  of  agriculture  we  must 
retain  in  our  service,  in  the  service  of  the  communal  economy,  as  with 
small  private  economy  we  shall  not  get  out  of  darkness  and  poverty.  And 
toward  the  specialists  in  rural  economy  we  will  act  in  the  same  way  as 
we  did  toward  the  specialists  in  the  Red  Army.  We  will  be  beaten  a 
hundred  times,  and  the  hundred-and-first  time  we  will  win.  So  we  will  be 
beaten  a  hundred  times  by  the  bourgeois  specialists,  landowners  and 
capitalists,  and  the  hundred-and-first  time  WE  WILL  BEAT  THEM. 
For  it  is  necessary  that  the  work  in  the  village  should  be  conducted  in  a 
disciplined  manner,  like  the  work  in  the  Red  Army. —  (Quotation  from  a 
speech  of  Nicolai  Lenin,  entitled  "The  Work  in  the  Villages,"  delivered 
at  Moscow,  and  reported  in  "Soviet  Russia,"  the  of&cial  organ  of  the 
Russian  Soviet  Government  Bureau,  under  date  of  February  7,  1920.) 


18 


Bolshevism — By  An  Eye -Witness. 

sheviks  soon  realized  that  if  they  permitted  that,  these  same 
workingmen  would  all  soon  become  capitalists. 

It  was  the  same  with  the  peasants.  Before  Lenin  went 
into  power  he  told  the  peasants  that  if  they  lived  in  a  little 
village  of  500  population  and  there  was  a  surrounding 
acreage  of  say  100,000  acres,  the  thing  for  them  to  do  was 
to  take  this  100,000  acres  of  land  and  divide  it  among 
themselves,  and  it  would  then  become  their  property. 

Poor  Peasants  and  Poorest  Peasaints. 

And  so  when  Lenin  came  into  power,  the  peasants  took 
the  land  and  divided  it  among  themselves.  Naturally, 
those  peasants  who  were  the  strongest  physically  got  most 
of  the  property  and  a  certain  number  who  were  not  strong 
enough  didn't  get  any  of  it.  These  people  were  called 
the  "poor  peasants,"  and  Lenin  told  them  the  thing  to  do 
was  to  get  after  these  rich,  capitalistic  peasants  and  take 
the  land  away  from  them,  and  if  they  could  not  do  it,  he 
would  give  them  the  Red  Guard.  He  gave  them  the  Red 
Guard  and  at  the  end  of  this  process,  this  second  division 
of  the  land,  there  were  again  some  peasants  without  land, 
and  so  the  same  process  was  used  again  and  with  the  aid 
of  the  Red  Guard  these  peasants  secured  their  land. 

And  again  there  were  a  lot  of  peasants  left  in  Russia 
without  land,  and  these  were  called  by  Lenin  the  "poorest 
peasants,"  and  then  again  the  same  process  was  put  into 
operation,  of  seizing,  by  the  aid  of  the  Red  Guard,  land 
from  the  capitalistic  peasants,  and  so  on,  everlasting  strug- 

18 


Bolshevism — By  An  Eye -Witness. 

gling  and  scrambling;  so  that  this  also  has  been  tried  and 
proved  a  failure.* 

Religion  Is  Being  Rooted  Out. 

Another  principle  put  into  operation  in  all  of  Russia, 
and  which  is  now  a  brilliant  success,  is  that  they  have  been 
able  to  demonstrate  to  the  workingmen  of  Russia  that 
religion  is  the  stronghold  of  capitalism. 

Let  us  take  a  look  into  its  operation.  It  is  not  a  theory 
but  an  actual  practice,  as  everything  in  Russia  today  is 
reduced  to  practice.  They  have  closed  the  churches  of  Rus- 
sia and  all  religious  organizations. 

In  a  communistic  school,  for  instance,  I  saw  a 
communist  commissar  bring  into  the  school  room  the 
skeleton  of  a  Russian  saint  and  at  the  same  time  the  skele- 
ton of  an  ordinary  human  being.  He  asked  these  children 
to  examine  the  skulls  to  see  if  they  could  discover  any 
spiritual  differences.  When  they  couldn't,  he  used  that  as 
his  argument  against  religion.  In  these  indirect  ways  they 
have  succeeded  in  undermining  the  religion  of  the  Russian 
people. 

They  closed  the  churches,  and  every  clergyman  and 
every  priest  and  every  man  who  is  a  member  of  a  religious 


*But  the  peasant  who  exploits,  who  has  a  surplus  of  grain,  and  sells 
it  to  the  starving  population  at  profiteering  prices,  he  is  our  enemy.  The 
peasants  do  not  at  all  understand  that  unbridled  trading  in  grain  is  a 
crime  against  the  state.  The  peasant  is  accustomed  to  consider  this  hlg 
right.  He  reasons  this  way:  "I  produced  the  grain,  I  worked  on  it, 
the  grain  is  in  my  hands,  and  I  have  a  right  to  trade  with  it."  This  is 
the  reasoning  of  the  peasant  with  the  old  habit  of  an  owner. —  (Quotation 
from  a  speech  of  Nicolai  Lenin  entitled  "The  Work  in  the  Villages"  de- 
livered at  Moscow  and  reported  in  "Soviet  Russia,"  the  official  organ  of 
the  Russian  Soviet  Government  Bureau,  under  date  of  February  7,  1»20.) 

20 


Bolshevism — By  An  Eye -Witness. 

organization  or  a  Russian  church  is  classed  as  having  no 
social  value. 

Social  Value  Only  Thing  That  Counts. 

Let  me  give  you  the  communist  definition  of  social 
value:  "A  man  who  is  of  no  economic  value  to  the  Bol- 
shevik government  has  no  social  value."  And  Lenin  says 
\o  these  priests  and  clergymen,  if  you  have  no  social  value, 
we  will  treat  you  as  we  would  treat  a  horse  or  a  dog  or 
a  cow,  that  has  no  economic  value.  In  other  words,  you 
are  not  fit  to  live,  and  as  we  cannot  shoot  you,  we  merely 
say  you  have  no  social  value,  and  from  that  minute  you  be- 
long in  the  last  category  o^  citizens,  and  a  man  in  this 
category  receives  a  limited  amount  of  food.  He  receives 
only  one-eighth  of  a  pound  a  day  of  a  very  poor  kind  of 
bread,  and  he  gets  a  very  limited  supply  of  fuel,  and 
clothing,  and  so  forth.  That  is  what  you  get  if  you  have 
no  social  value.  In  Russia  today,  a  clergyman  has 
no  social  value  but  under  these  conditions  many  will  soon 
profess  communism  in  order  to  belong  to  the  first  category 
and  receive  a  ration  of  one  pound  of  bread  a  day.  In 
this  manner  they  got  control  of  the  clergymen  and  the 
priests,  as  well  as  of  all  the  counter  revolutionists. 

Every  Man  Must  Fight  or  Work. 

Another  economic  or  Marxian  principle  of  the  program 
that  has  been  put  in  operation  in  Russia  is  the  control  of 
the  workingmen  through  the  military  organization  which 
Trotsky  has  built  up.  There  is  no  military  organization 
in  history  more  strongly  intrenched  than  the  organization 
known  as  the  Red  Army.     The  old  imperial  army  of  Rus- 

21 


Bolshevism — By  An  Eye -Witness, 

sia  had  no  comparison  with  the  strength  and  discipline  and 
the  power  of  the  Red  Army  of  Russia.  And  the  reason 
for  this  is  that  every  citizen  of  the  so-called  Soviet  Repub- 
lic is  either  a  member  of  the  Red  Army  or  a  member  of  a 
labor  battalion,  and  at  the  top  is  the  War  Department 
which  controls  all  such  organizations. 

Every  workingman  of  Petrograd,  for  instance,  would 
be  a  member  either  of  the  military  organization  or  the 
communist  or  labor  organization.  A  machinist  in  one  of 
your  factories  would  be  a  member  of  the  communist  labor 
battalion  number  so-and-so,  and  when  he  receives  his 
mobilization  card  he  would  not  know  whether  he  is  being 
sent  to  the  front  or  to  the  factory.  In  other  words,  he  is 
conscripted.  He  is  forced  to  work  in  the  factory  as  he  is 
forced  to  fight  in  the  army.  So  you  can  readily  see  that 
the  workingman  of  Russia  has  no  liberties  whatsoever,  in 
fact  less  than  he  had  when  the  Czar  was  ruling  him. 

I  noticed  a  peculiar  feature  of  this  system  at  work  one 
day.  I  noticed  some  of  these  communist  laborers  go 
into  the  factory  in  the  morning  and  punch  a  time  card,  and 
then  go  out,  and  later  come  in  ag^in  and  punch  their  time 
card  and  go  out  again,  and  the  same  thing  at  night.  When 
I  asked  one  of  the  workingmen  what  the  idea  was,  he  said: 
"We  must  punch  the  time  card  in  order  to  get  our  ration 
of  bread." 

Workingman  the  Worst  Sufferer. 

The  workingman,  as  I  have  said,  is  the  one  that  suffers 
the  most  of  all  in  Russia.  If  the  capitalists  of  the  world 
were  looking  for  the  most  autocratic  system  in  order  to  es- 
tablish a  control  over  the  workingman,  they  would  find  no 

22 


Bolshevism — By  An  Eye -Witness, 

better,  and  efficient,  and  powerful  machinery  existing  for 
that  very  purpose  than  that  system  which  is  known  as  the 
Soviet  system. 

It  is  the  most  highly  developed  form  of  militarism  that 
has  been  developed  in  history.  A  workingman  loses  the 
control  not  only  over  the  actions  of  the  state  but  over  his 
own  actions  as  well,  and  over  the  smallest  and  most  per- 
sonal actions,  such  as  his  family,  his  religion,  his  food 
and  even  the  clothing  he  wears. 

Workingmen's  Bodies  Not  Their  Own. 

The  peasants  and  workingmen  of  Russia  say  that  under 
the  Czar  they  could  not  call  their  souls  their  own,  but  today 
they  tell  you  that  they  cannot  call  their  bodies  their  own — 
tliey  belong  to  the  soviet  government,  which  controls  their 
bodies,  which  tells  them  where  and  how  they  should  live, 
what  they  must  do  and  how  they  must  do  it,  and  so  forth. 

Nationalization  of  Women. 

You  have  all  read  in  the  American  newspapers  articles 
about  the  nationalization  of  women  in  Russia.  That  is  not 
a  dream  but  is  in  actual  practice.  I  don't  know  of  my  own 
knowledge  of  the  existence  of  a  national  decree  of  this 
kind  but  there  were  such  decrees  of  local  Soviets.  But 
the  whole  political  philosophy  of  the  control  of  the  people 
by  the  Soviet  of  Russia  naturally  gives  rise  to  the  na- 
tionalization of  women ;  in  other  words,  they  are  controlled 
just  the  same  as  everything  else. 

I  was  married  in  Russia  under  the  Soviets,  and  I  know 
what  actually  happens,  so  I  can  speak  from  personal  ex- 
perience.    The  marriage  contract  is  simply  a  contract  as 

28 


Bolshevism — By  An  Eye -Witness. 

any  other  civil  contract.  You  go  to  the  bureau  with  the 
woman  that  you  wish  to  marry  and  ask  for  a  permit  to  be 
married,  and  you  are  issued  a  permit  which  allows  you  all 
the  privileges  of  marital  relations.  The  next  day  the  hus- 
band, or  the  wife,  can  go  back  to  the  bureau  and  cancel 
the  marriage  contract,  and  the  commissar  in  charge  will 
do  it  willingly. 

Furthermore,  the  state  willingly  assumes  the  respons- 
ibility for  the  children.  In  fact,  it  always  takes  the  re- 
sponsibility for  the  children,  for  it  does  not  want  the 
parents  to  have  the  responsibility, — they  don't  want  the 
parents  to  bring  up  the  children  according  to  their  own 
ideas  of  life  but  according  to  the  communistic  idea. 

Allied  Blockade  Not  Responsible. 

The  breakdown  in  industry  and  agriculture  and  condi- 
tions in  Russia  today  is  not  due  to  the  Allied  blockade 
of  Russia,  Lenin  and  Trotsky  will  tell  you  that  the  famine 
in  Russia  is  due  to  the  Allied  blockade,  but  it  is  not  a  fact. 
It  is  due  to  the  system  which  they  have  been  trying  to  put 
into  operation  in  Russia  and  the  system  has  been  a  failure.* 


*With  a  right  distribution  of  bread  all  will  be  satisfied,  and  then  we 
■will  be  able  to  get  out  of  all  difficulties.  And  to  have  a  correct  distribu- 
tion, it  is  necessary  that  the  peasants  should  assist  in  every  way.  Here 
there  will  be  no  indulgence  on  the  part  of  the  Soviets.  The  peasant  must 
give  the  surplus  of  grain  to  the  state  in  the  form  of  a  loan.  At  present 
we  can  give  no  commodities  to  the  peasants,  because  we  do  not  have 
them ;  there  is  no  coal,  the  railroads  and  the  factories  are  stopping.  To 
reconstruct  the  destroyed  economy  it  is  necessary  that  the  peasant  should, 
from  the  first,  give  his  surplus  products  as  a  loan  to  the  state.  Only  with 
such  loans  will  we  be  able  to  get  out  of  all  difficulties. —  (Quotation  from 
a  speech  by  Nicolai  Lenin  entitled  "The  Work  in  the  Villages"  delivered 
at  Moscow  and  reported  in  "Soviet  Russia,"  the  official  organ  of  the 
Russian  Soviet  Government  Bureau,  under  date  of  February  7,  1920.) 


24 


Bolshevism — By  An  Eye -Witness. 

Therefore,  they  say,  "The  time  has  come  that  we  must 
change  the  system,  in  other  words  submit  to  the  allies; 
nevertheless,  we  must  never  cease  to  put  into  operation  the 
principles  of  the  Marxian  socialism  that  we  have  tried  out, 
even  if  we  are  forced  to  come  to  terms.  We  must  continue 
our  propaganda." 

World  Wide  Propaganda. 

The  Bolshevik  government  has  one  of  the  most  extensive 
and  most  powerful  systems  of  propaganda  the  world  has 
known.  Every  commissar  I  met  was  a  propagandist.  In 
every  city  and  village  of  the  Soviets  you  find  the  propaganda 
headquarters  and  bureaus.  In  these  bureaus  you  find  all 
these  proclamations,  these  communist  manifestos,  printed 
in  every  language  and  dialect. 

Not  only  are  they  printed  in  every  language  but  in  all 
the  different  dialects  in  addition.  We  counted  there  one 
day  sixty  different  Chinese  dialects  alone  in  which  a  cer- 
tain proclamation  had  been  issued.  So  there  is  not  a  lan- 
guage or  a  dialect  in  the  world  that  they  have  overlooked 
in  which  they  have  not  already  printed  their  propaganda 
leaflets. 

Of  course,  these  leaflets  in  the  Chinese  language  or  the 
Hindu  language — we  found  there  forty  different  dialects 
of  the  Hindu  language — are  of  no  good  in  Russia  but  are 
sent  all  over  the  world.  Their  literature  and  propaganda 
is  spread  all  over  the  world,  and  that  is  why  I  feel  safe  in 
asserting  that  Lenin  proposes  to  establish  the  communist 
system  all  over  the  world.  I  brought  with  me  from  Mos- 
cow  proclamations  printed   in   the   English   language   ad- 

25 


Bolshevism — By  An  Eye -Witness. 

dressed  to  the  American  workingmen  in  which  they  advise 
the  American  workingman  of  the  dangers  of  American 
democracy. 

TTiey  say  that  the  ballot  is  the  most  clever  system  by 
which  the  American  capitalists  are  able  to  control  the 
workingman  and  that  it  has  been  invented  for  that  purpose, 
and  they  advise  them  to  back  up  their  ballots  with  bullets. 
In  other  words,  the  Bolsheviks  have  realized  that  force  is 
the  only  safe  argument  for  their  propaganda. 


Lenin's  Program. 

I  remember  Lenin  describing  the  various  classes  of 
people.  He  said  at  the  top  you  have  the  militant  capital- 
ist, then  you  have  the  large  majority  of  the  human  race, 
the  bourgeoise — the  indifferent  class.  He  said  this  second 
class  is  easily  controlled  by  propaganda.  The  third  class 
he  said  consists  of  the  militant  proletariat,  those  whose 
minds  have  not  been  poisoned  by  the  capitalistic  system  of 
education.  In  other  words,  all  the  militant  proletariat, 
the  communistic  workingmen,  those  he  knows  he  can  con- 
trol; the  second  class  he  can  control  by  propaganda,  and 
of  course  the  first  he  controls  by  force. 

One  thing  I  have  noticed  everywhere  is  that  Lenin  and 
Trotsky  have  no  use  for  those  .workingmen  who  can  read 
or  write.  A  workingman  who  knows  how  to  read  or  write 
knows  democracy  and  he  cannot  be  converted  to  com- 
munism in  Russia,  and  that  is  why  they  carefully  advise 
the  American  workingmen  to  beware  of  the  American 
school-houses,  where  they  say  the  capitalists  have  their 
greatest  strength. 

26 


Bolshevism — By  An  Eye -Witness, 

Why  the  Schools  are  Crowded. 

You  will  read,  however,  in  the  reports  of  Americans 
who  have  been  in  Russia  that  their  schoolrooms  are  crowd- 
ed with  children.  That  is  a  fact,  but  why  are  the  school- 
rooms crowded?  Any  one  who  has  been  in  Soviet  Russia 
knows  that  the  children  of  Russia  can  obtain  their  food 
only  in  the  school-room.  Every  person  in  Russia  is  ra- 
tioned and  can  only  obtain  his  food  on  his  food  card  and 
the  food  cards  are  distributed  to  the  children  as  well.  These 
rations  are  given  them  from  the  school-room,  and  con- 
sequently the  school-rooms  are  crowded — in  fact  over- 
crowded. 

I  also  have  read  recently  in  a  report  from  an  Ameri- 
can who  had  been  in  Russia  for  seven  days,  that  the  children 
in  the  school-rooms  will  fight  among  themselves  to  obtain 
the  Bolshevik  propaganda  and  the  Bolshevik  literature. 
This  is  a  fact.  But  why  do  they  do  it? — they  never  tell 
you  the  why  and  wherefore  of  these  things. 

I  will  tell  you  why.  They  do  it  for  the  same  reason 
that  I  did  it  and  every  one  else  does  in  Russia, — to  take 
home  as  fuel.  A  pound  of  paper  is  just  as  good  fuel  as 
a  poimd  of  coal  or  wood,  and  fuel  being  a  scarce  commodi- 
ty, this  answers  the  purpose.  That  is  why  children  are 
"scrapping"  for  communist  leaflets. 

Cities  Steirving;   Villages  Have  Plenty. 

The  famine  in  Russia  exists  only  in  the  cities,  however. 
I  have  visited  hundreds  of  villages  and  I  have  traveled 
everywhere,  from  one  village  to  another,  from  one  hut  to 
another,  and  in  no  instance  have  I  found  any  want  or  famine 

27 


Bolshevism — By  An  Eye -Witness. 

among  the  peasants.  However,  in  no  case  could  I  find  a 
peasant  that  would  sell,  even  for  money,  half  a  pound  of 
potatoes  or  half  a  pound  of  bread.  They  raise  just  enough 
to  feed  themselves,  for  if  they  raise  more,  it  is  immedi- 
ately requisitioned  by  the  government  and  it  means  they 
have  nothing  for  their  work,  and  where  in  the  world  will 
you  find  a  workingman  that  will  work  for  nothing?* 

Therefore,  when  you  go  to  Petrograd  you  will  find 
the  most  extreme  starvation,  and  on  the  farms  just  five 
miles  out  of  the  city,  you  will  find  food  and  plenty  of  it. 
But  the  peasant,  as  I  have  said,  will  not  give  up  the  food. 
If  there  is  any  surplus,  it  is  immediately  requisitioned. 
There  are  more  requisition  committees  in  Russia  than  any 
other  organization,  in  fact  half  of  the  Red  Guards  are  on 
the  requisition  committees. 

Sovietism  vs.  Marxian  Socialism. 

The  so-called  economic  breakdown  of  Russia  today  is 
the  result  of  trying  to  establish  an  untried  system  of  econ- 
omy, which  is  known  as  Marxian  socialism.  All  those  thou- 
sands and  thousands  of  Russian  exiles  who  returned  to  Rus- 
sia and  who  were  so  hopeful  for  socialism,  who  thought  and 
believed  that  socialism  would  be  successful  in  Russia — 
they  remained  in  Russia  under  the  Bolshevik  rule  and  they 
saw  the  results  of  it,  and  all  these  men  that  I  know  who 
saw  Bolshevism  in   operation,  are  the  most  disappointed 


*Every  peasant  will  agree  that  when  a  worker  1b  djing  from  starva- 
tion, It  is  necessary  to  give  him  bread  on  credit;  and  yet  when  it  comes 
to  millions  of  workers  and  millions  of  peasants  they  do  not  understand  it, 
and  the  peasant  resorts  again  to  the  old  form  of  exploitation. —  (Quotation 
from  a  speech  of  Nicolai  Lenin  entitled  "The  Work  in  the  Villages"  de- 
livered at  Moscow  and  reported  in  "Soviet  Russia,"  the  official  organ  of 
the  Russian  Soviet  Government  Bureau,  under  date  of  February  7,  1920.) 

28 


Bolshevism — By  An  Eye -Witness. 

people  in  the  world.  They  saw  the  workings  of  the  system 
and  had  found  it  even  worse  than  the  Czar's  rule,  and 
everyone  of  them,  with  but  few  exceptions,  was  obliged  to 
leave  Russia  and  you  will  find  them  scattered  all  over 
the  world.  One  of  them  visited  Milwaukee  a  short  time 
ago;  Babuska  Breshkovya,  known  as  the  Grandmother  of 
the  Revolution,  who  has  spent  more  than  thirty  years  of 
her  life  in  jail  for  the  cause.  She  is  the  most  disappointed 
woman  in  the  world  today,  because  she  has  been  obliged 
to  admit  that  the  system  that  has  been  put  in  operation  in 
Russia  is  a  failure  and  that  the  people  that  suffer  most 
under  it  are  not  the  rich  but  the  working-class.  She  has 
seen  the  system  in  operation  and  has  pronounced  it  a  com- 
plete failure. 

Wsmt  World  Peace  for  Breathing  Spell. 

The  communist  commissars  or  rulers  of  soviet  Russia 
are  therefore  out  for  a  world-peace.  They  want  peace  with 
the  world.  I  remember  Lenin  and  Trotsky  telling  the 
people  that  "the  time  will  come  when  Soviet  Russia  must 
make  its  exit.  However,  that  does  not  mean  for  a  moment 
that  the  large  system  of  propaganda  which  we  have  started 
must  stop.  We  will  continue  with  this  right  along;  we 
must  continue  our  untiring  efforts  in  this  direction  as 
never  before."  Let  me  give  you  an  excerpt  from  one  of 
the  typical  speeches: 

"We  are  undertaking  the  move  towards  peace  with  a 
clear  realization  that  in  the  course  of  time  this  peace  will 
be  profitable  to  us  and  not  to  our  enemies.  And,  com- 
rades, it  seems  to  me  that  this  has  been  proved  up  to  the 
hilt  by  our  experience  with  the  Brest-Litovsk  peace.     Sign- 

29 


Bolshevism — By  An  Eye -Witness. 

ing  such  a  peace  with  the  Allies  would  not  mean  that  we 
would  for  a  second  even  stop  building  up  our  Red  Army. 
It  would  only  mean  that  we  would  put  no  trust  whatever 
in  the  bit  of  paper  which  we  should  sign.  We  would  con- 
tinue to  build  up  our  army — but  at  the  same  time  we  would 
allow  our  workmen  and  peasants  to  draw  a  few  free  breaths. 
We  should  be  bound  to  accept  these  conditions  in  the  full 
assurance  that  history  is  working  for  us  and  that  every 
hour  brings  us  nearer  to  the  final  ruin  of  our  enemies, 
that  we  should  use  this  breathing  spell  so  obtained  in  order 
to  gather  our  strength,  in  order  that  the  mere  continued 
existence  of  our  Government  would  continue  the  grand 
scale  propaganda  which  Soviet  Russia  has  been  carrying 
on  for  more  than  a  year." 

World  Revolution  Uppermost  Thought. 

Lenin  never  for  a  moment  permits  the  idea  of  a  world 
revolution  to  leave  his  mind.  In  all  of  his  speeches  he 
reminds  his  comrades  that  the  idea  of  social  revolution 
must  dominate  the  people.  In  their  speeches  these  words 
and  expressions  are  continually  employed:  "World 
Revolution,"  "Overthrow  of  France,"  "Overthrow  of  Eng- 
land," "Overthrow  of  the  United  States,"  "International 
Revolution."  The  social  revolution  idea  is  the  great  driving 
force  of  communism  today. 

Internationalism  the  Watchword. 

The  political  character  of  Russia  is  not  a  national  one. 
The  communists  of  Russia  have  nothing  to  do  with  national- 
ism, and  that  is  why  all  of  their  government  bureaus  are 
called  bureaus  of  the  "International  World  Soviet";  and 

80 


Bolshevism — By  An  Eye -Witness. 

so  the  new  money  is  not  called  Russian  money  but  is  called 
"International  World  Soviet  Money  of  the  Republic  of 
Soviet  Russia." 

When  they  are  established  in  the  United  States  they 
will  have  the  same  money  only  it  will  be  called  "the  money 
of  the  Soviet  of  the  United  States."  Their  whole  program 
is  one  of  international  socialism,  and  in  the  histories  and 
the  new  text-books  the  nations  of  the  world  such  as  they 
exist  today  do  not  exist  in  their  geographies.  Their  map 
is  divided  according  to  the  uprisings  of  the  workingmen. 
You  can  rest  assured  that  Milwaukee  has  a  big,  bright  red 
spot  on  their  map. 

The  program  of  the  Bolsheviks  in  Russia  has  been  much 
encouraged  by  a  great  many  Americans  who  have  been 
in  Russia.  I  have  in  mind  particularly  one  man  who  has 
been  there  as  the  head  of  our  Red  Cross,  who  has  been 
called  the  unofficial  representative  of  the  American  people. 
Lenin  said  one  day,  "We  must  not  pay  much  attention 
to  what  Ambassador  Francis  says;  we  must  listen  only  to 
Raymond  Robbins,  who  has  told  us  that  the  American 
government  is  favorable  toward  us  and  commends  the 
soviet  of  Russia,"  preaching  that  the  American  people 
stand  for  communism,  stand  for  sovietism,  and  that  the 
American  workingmen  will  force  our  government  to  recog- 
nize soviet  Russia. 


The  Fear  of  American  Democracy. 

Nevertheless,  Lenin  and  Trotsky  are  afraid  of  the 
American  democratic  institutions,  and  particularly  of  the 
American  Constitution.     You   will   see  in  their  so-called 

n 


Bolshevism — By  An  Eye -Witness. 

"Rogue's  Gallery  of  Capitalism"  the  American  Constitution 
as  the  greatest  tool  of  capitalism  in  the  world,  stating  that 
when  that  has  heen  suppressed  communism  will  be  estab- 
lished throughout  the  world. 

Stand  by  the  Constitution. 

So,  if  you  don't  want  to  see  communism  established  and 
intrenched  throughout  the  world,  if  you  are  against  com- 
munism, against  the  soviet,  and  against  the  Bolshevik 
autocracy,  you  only  have  to  stand  by  your  Constitution, — 
by  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States. 


t9 


Bolshevism  means  the  destruction  of  all  fam- 
ily ties;  the  breaking  up  of  the  home  by  nation- 

nlizing-  all  property  and  thus  destroying  all  proprietary 
interest  in  the  state  and   in   the   welfare  of  the   coin 
inunity.      In-  other   words   the    rule    of   Bolshevism    means   the 
return  of  soeiety  to  barbarism. 

Bolshevism   is  the   very  antithesis  of  dem- 
oeracy.    Demoeniey  means  literally  a  rule  by  thti 

people.  Lineoln  has  given  the  best  definition  of,  n\ 
Democracy  vvhen  he  said  in  his  Gettysburg  address:] 
H  government  "of  tiie  people,  by  the  people,  and  for  the  peoph;." 

DAVU)  a.  FUANCIS. 

Aiitciiiivii  Aiiihaxsiaflor  to  f'iifisiii.\ 

•  •  • 


It  is  a  calamity,  not  alone  for  Russia,  but  foj 

the   world  at  large,   to   permit   Bolshevi^Jm   to  flourish 
and  expand. 

M  M  V. .   [J RES H  KO  V S  K  "\', 
The  (JtattihnotJiff  of  the  IfHssuiii.  Htvolntion. 


'di 


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